Abstract:

How strong are normative prohibitions on state behavior? The authors examine this question by analyzing anti-nuclear norms, sometimes called the “nuclear taboo,” using an original survey experiment to evaluate American attitudes regarding nuclear use. The authors find that the public has only a weak aversion to using nuclear weapons and that this aversion has few characteristics of an “unthinkable” behavior or taboo. Instead, public attitudes about whether to use nuclear weapons are driven largely by consequentialist considerations of military utility. Americans’ willingness to use nuclear weapons increases dramatically when nuclear weapons provide advantages over conventional weapons in destroying critical targets. Americans who oppose the use of nuclear weapons seem to do so primarily for fear of setting a negative precedent that could lead to the use of nuclear weapons by other states against the United States or its allies in the future.

This article studies variation in conflict theater choice by Western jihadists in an effort to understand their motivations. Some militants attack at home, whereas others join insurgencies abroad, but few scholars have asked why they make these different choices. Using open-source data, I estimate recruit supply for each theater, foreign fighter return rates, and returnee impact on domestic terrorist activity. The tentative data indicate that jihadists prefer foreign fighting, but a minority attacks at home after being radicalized, most often through foreign fighting or contact with a veteran. Most foreign fighters do not return for domestic operations, but those who do return are more effective operatives than nonveterans. The findings have implications for our understanding of the motivations of jihadists, for assessments of the terrorist threat posed by foreign fighters, and for counterterrorism policy.

Many well-established explanations for war suggest that cyber weapons have a greater chance of being used offensively than other kinds of military technologies. This response article introduces a research agenda for the study of cyber war, and offers an example – principal-agent problems in cyber operations – to demonstrate how rigorous theoretical and empirical work may proceed.

Abstract

Over the past century peak oil forecasts have had a profound influence on US national security policy.  Unquestioned acceptance of a variety of oil scarcity forecasts, all of which proved wrong, repeatedly led policymakers to assume that rival powers sought to seize dwindling supplies.  Perennial expectation of resource conflict gradually elevated the perceived importance of Middle East (ME) oil, which was thought to be the last left on earth.  In response, increasingly aggressive US policies were adopted to secure a US share of ME oil.  Belief in a scarcity imperative for aggressive policy is here called “oil scarcity ideology.” Over the course of three iterations of the scarcity syndrome from 1909 to 1980, pre-emptive action to avert scarcity became a national security norm. 

During the 1970s Cold War scarcity ideology became particularly complex and dangerous.  Widespread belief in a new generation of peak oil forecasts engendered fear that an Arab oil weapon could cripple the US economy.  Even more ominously, the CIA forecast an impending Soviet production collapse.  From these two forecasts security experts inferred that an oil-starved USSR would try to seize Iranian oil production by force.  If the Soviets were not deterred by President Carter’s verbal warning against such action, some security experts urged that the US must launch its own invasion, occupying Iran’s oilfields to preempt the Soviets from seizing them.  If conventional force failed to halt the Red Army, the US must resort to nuclear war. In conjuring this oil-marauding USSR from scarcity ideology, security policymakers actively disregarded a great deal of market information indicating that global production would not soon peak and that Soviet production would not soon collapse.  The non-apocalyptic outlook was shared by a large cohort of market analysts, academics and government agencies.  Nonetheless, the National Security Council (NSC) was able to persuade the President to proclaim that the US would use unlimited force to protect Persian Gulf oil supply.  Carter’s threat, now known as the Carter Doctrine, has rationalized Persian Gulf force projection ever since.

The essay plan is as follows.  I first describe early iterations of the scarcity syndrome that recurred around the 20^th century World Wars.  In both iterations, scientists and high officials of the Department of the Interior convinced national security policymakers that (i) US oil would soon run out, (ii) that Western Hemisphere supply could not meet the shortfall, therefore (iii) aggressive policies were required to wrest a share of ME oil from rival powers.  I then describe how peak oil theories advanced during WW2 formed the basis of Cold War scarcity ideology, in which the Soviet Union played the rival’s role. Finally, I consider implications of this historical record for international security theory.  My research utilizes two sources not widely available, (i) recently declassified documents from the Jimmy Carter Presidential Library and (ii) the historic petroleum trade journal collection of The University of Tulsa’s McFarlin Library. 

This paper analyzes the causes, responses, and consequences of the Fukushima nuclear power plant accident (March 2011) by comparing these with Three Mile Island (March 1979) and Chernobyl (April 1986). We identify three generic modes of organizational coordination: modular, vertical, and horizontal. By relying on comparative institutional analysis, we compare the modes' performance characteristics in terms of short-term and long-term coordination, preparedness for shocks, and responsiveness to shocks. We derive general lessons, including the identification of three shortcomings of integrated Japanese electric utilities: (1) decision instability that can lead to system failure after a large shock, (2) poor incentives to innovate, and (3) the lack of defense-in-depth strategies for accidents. Our suggested policy response is to introduce an independent Nuclear Safety Commission, and an Independent System Operator to coordinate buyers and sellers on publicly owned transmission grids. Without an independent safety regulator, or a very well established “safety culture,” profit-maximizing behavior by an entrenched electricity monopoly will not necessarily lead to a social optimum with regard to nuclear power plant safety. All countries considering continued operation or expansion of their nuclear power industries must strive to establish independent, competent, and respected safety regulators, or prepare for nuclear power plant accidents.